Previously, packages or carriers for vessels, such as of glass, have been made with suspending handles, partitions or apertures for the vessels in horizontal or diverging apertured and/or collared panels, and also including bottom panels for supporting the bases of the vessels to be packaged, supported or carried, such as shown in Struble U.S. Pat. No. 3,744,704 issued July 10, 1973 classified in Class 229 Sub 28 BC, and Jamison U.S. Pat. No. 3,225,959 issued Dec. 28, 1965 classified in Class 200 Sub 102 and cross-referenced in Class 206 Sub 194. Furthermore, such prior art supports or carriers without bottoms were always made for vessels of a predetermined and uniform size and shape and were not adaptable for different size and shape containers unless the dimensions of their apertures or collars were correspondingly changed, such as shown in Flamm U.S. Pat. No. 2,330,699 issued Sept. 28, 1943 classified in Class 294-87, Cunningham U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,754 issued Apr. 17, 1973 classified in Class 206 Sub 65E, and Gordon U.S. Pat. No. 3,868,140 issued Feb. 25, 1975 classified in Class 294 Sub 87.2 and cross-referenced in Class 206 Sub 139.
None of these references known to date, which are believed to be the most pertinent to applicant's cup carrier, show applicant's type of semicircular floating collar for engaging simultaneously for transport a wide variety of shapes and sizes of full drinking cups without being supported by their bottoms.